Gurinder Chadha – Bitch Flicks

Adolescence and Female Friendship in Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’

After chronicling the clashes among family, football, and adolescence in ‘Bend it Like Beckham,’ Gurinder Chadha delves into similar territory with the ebullient coming-of-age tale ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.’ An adaptation of the 1999 novel ‘Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging’ by the late Louise Rennison, the film tells the story of Georgia Nicolson, a teenager growing up in Eastbourne, England, whose entry into the world of romancing boys is as fraught and funny as you might expect.

This guest post written by Deborah Krieger appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

After chronicling the clashes among family, football, and adolescence in Bend it Like Beckham (2002), Gurinder Chadha delves into similar territory with the ebullient coming-of-age tale Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008). An adaptation of the 1999 novel Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by the late Louise Rennison, the film tells the story of Georgia Nicolson (Georgia Groome), a teenager growing up in Eastbourne, England, whose entry into the world of romancing boys is as fraught and funny as you might expect.

Georgia falls quickly for the “sex-god” Robbie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a new boy in town, and spends the course of the film trying to win him over. In the film’s opening scene, Georgia’s friend Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) tells her regretfully, “Boys don’t like girls for funniness.” Taking this questionable advice to heart, Georgia attempts to make Robbie fall for her by hiding her own dramatic attitude and hapless sense of humor that separate her from the other girls in town. By the end, of course, she learns the all-too-important lesson that you don’t need supermodel looks to get a boyfriend, and that your significant other should like you for yourself and not who you pretend to be.

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging has a quite a bit in common with other movies and books in the “teen romantic comedy” genre. It is undoubtedly formulaic, and contains the expected happy ending and all-important positive message of self-confidence. Yet Georgia herself, and her attitude towards life, are what make the book and the film memorable, as Georgia is vividly crafted, full of recognizable flaws. She consistently makes the worst, most embarrassing social errors in nearly any given situation, including being caught spying on Robbie by him and his girlfriend; accidentally exposing her “knickers” to a crowd of partygoers (including Robbie) while fighting off another boy’s advances; or telling said boy that she’s a lesbian in order to avoid having to date him. For Georgia, her parents’ refusal to rent out a club for her fifteenth birthday constitutes the cruelest mistreatment, and she rather callously views her father’s job transfer to New Zealand as little more than an opportunity for her to have only one parent to supervise her misbehavior. (Of course, by the end of the film she realizes that she misses her dad and would rather have her family together.)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is of opposing minds when it comes to showing how teens deal with their developing sexuality. On the one hand, many such encounters in the film are refreshingly realistic, for the most part eschewing picture-perfect kisses and idealized romantic encounters for true-to-life depictions of what being a teenager is actually like: full of awkwardness, weird mishaps, and lots of saliva. Seemingly over the course of minutes, teenage boys go from disgusting, unsanitary mysteries to objects of fledgling desire — from mere concept to attainable goal. In an early scene, Georgia’s friend Rosie (Georgia Henshaw) instructs their group of friends to sit on their hands to numb them, then to touch their chests over their clothes to simulate getting “felt up” by a boy.

On the other hand, the girls also treat sexuality in a rather cynical way: as a competition to be won, a skill to be taught and learned, and a game to be quantified and scored. Early in the film, Georgia and Jas introduce their “snogging scale,” or ten escalating forms of romantic and sexual kissing, with hand-holding while kissing at number one and “the full monty” at number ten. This scale is referenced consistently in conversations between Georgia and Jas, with them discussing their sexual experiences in terms of what number they earn on the scale. While preparing to make Robbie hers, Georgia visits the home of local boy named Peter Dyer (Liam Hess) to learn how to kiss. Peter is a local “ladies’ man” who apparently teaches snogging to all the local girls, and goes about his work with all the seriousness of a businessman. He sets a thirty-minute timer at the beginning of his lesson with Georgia, delivers questionably-sage advice, and insists that she be honest about her previous experience so that he can “evaluate” her accurately, prompting her to admit her only experience is with “the back of [her] hand.” Where other teen romances might feature the protagonist fantasizing about sharing her first-ever kiss with her crush, in the world of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging kissing — and what comes after — is treated in a much more transactional (and perhaps more practical) way.

Another central aspect of the film’s narrative is the looming presence of beauty standards to which Georgia and her friends feel they must adhere if they have any hope of getting a boyfriend. After realizing that even to her own friends, her large nose diminishes her attractiveness, Georgia continually tries to change her looks in order to make herself more appealing to boys. While in pursuit of the kind of supermodel beauty that will undoubtedly make Robbie hers, Georgia also manages to lose some of her hair by trying to bleach it, accidentally shaves off one of her eyebrows, gives herself the appearance of having pink eye by putting Vaseline on her eyelashes, and turns her legs bright orange with self-tanner, which Robbie notices while the pair are swimming in a public pool. Yet despite Georgia’s perception of herself as unattractive and in need of beautifying, the film’s plot actually belies her claims, revealing her to be rather unreliable as a narrator. In addition to Robbie, whom Georgia wins over by the end of the film, naturally, she has to contend with two other boys who want to date her: the aforementioned Peter Dyer, he of the copious saliva, and Dave the Laugh, a boy she goes out with only to make Robbie jealous. Additionally, both Robbie and Georgia’s father comment disparagingly on her desire to keep changing herself, and that she is fine the way she is. Therefore, despite the early assertion in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging that boys don’t like funny girls, or weird girls, or girls who don’t have the CoverGirl look, Georgia’s own travails prove otherwise, and demonstrate that she really didn’t need to change much about herself at all to get the boy she wants.

However, the film falls into some unfortunate classic teen romance narrative traps as it tries to demonstrate Georgia’s own uniqueness and establish her as the ideal girl for Robbie. Right off the bat, the film immediately draws a contrast between the inexperienced Georgia and “Slaggy Lindsay,” Robbie’s girlfriend at the beginning of the movie, and thus Georgia’s rival. (“Slaggy” basically means “slutty,” for those not of us speaking the Queen’s English.) Lindsay (Kimberley Nixon) is immediately presented as the enemy even before Robbie is in the picture, and the narrative continually backs up this assertion. Lindsay is the conventionally attractive girl who stuffs her bra and wears a thong (the horror!), while Georgia doesn’t commit those apparently unforgivable acts. Lindsay’s behavior towards Georgia over the course of the movie is presented as needlessly petty and at times cruel, even though Georgia is, admittedly, aiming for her boyfriend. Despite the fact that boyfriends can’t be stolen, it’s still a pretty selfish move on Georgia’s part, and one that manages to avoid diegetic condemnation even as many of Georgia’s sneaky and dishonest maneuvers are properly called out.

While not as prominent in the movie as in the original book, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging also keenly traces the way that girls’ friendships change during adolescence when the specter of boys — and maturity — comes into the picture. Georgia’s “ace gang” of Georgia, Jas, Rosie, and Ellen (Manjeeven Grewal) are presented as the thickest of thieves, ready to go “boy-stalking” together, take beauty quizzes, and encourage one another’s romantic adventures. Yet the very first scene actually undermines the unity of the so-called “ace gang,” demonstrating the kind of social pressures that adolescent girls must contend with, and conquer, in order to maintain their friendships. The film opens with Georgia arriving at a Halloween party dressed as a stuffed cocktail olive, making more of a statement than she’d like in a room full of sexy angels, devils, and cowgirls. We then learn that the rest of the “ace gang” was supposed to go in matching costumes, yet the other three girls have decided to join their peers in wearing sexualized and attractive costumes without telling Georgia. It is both an establishing character moment for Georgia, an olive in a room of nymphets, as well as a recognizable betrayal of friendship on the part of her friends.

The greatest such rift in the film, though, comes from Jas, Georgia’s conventionally pretty “best mate,” who manages to snag Robbie’s brother Tom (Sean Bourke) early on in the film with little effort. She subsequently spends much of the film disappointing Georgia and frustrating her attempts to date Robbie, culminating in a recognizable yet tragic falling-out that lasts until the end of the movie. Jas correctly points out Georgia’s “scheming and pretending” as a cause of why Robbie won’t date her, while Georgia argues (also with some legitimacy) that Jas has been a rather poor friend when it comes to keeping her secrets. Georgia also manages to dig the hole between her and Jas deeper when she criticizes what she views as Tom’s lack of ambition, as Robbie wants to be a rockstar. Jas delivers the classic fatal blow to a teenage friendship when she announces that she will be attending Lindsay’s party instead of Georgia’s, because of course they are on the same day.

Of course, the party at the end — the club party Georgia so wanted at the beginning of the film — allows everything to be solved. Jas and Georgia reconcile (as Jas secretly helped Georgia’s mother plan the whole thing, conveniently fixing their friendship), Robbie and his band headline the party set, Robbie very publicly rejects Lindsay in front of seemingly everyone in town and declares his feelings for Georgia unequivocally, and her father doesn’t end up having to move to New Zealand. Indeed, the ending of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is the least realistic aspect of the movie — nothing in the real world resolves itself quite so easily and painlessly. Perhaps outright condemning (or at least questioning) Georgia’s perpetuation of the Taylor Swift-esque “she wears short skirts / I wear tee shirts” dynamic with Lindsay might have taken the film all the way from cliché to truly lifelike. Still, though, it’s hard not to be pleased for Georgia and her happy ending, if only because there is so much in her (mis)adventures that are very recognizable and true.

Deborah Krieger is a senior at Swarthmore College, studying art history, film and media studies, and German. She has written for Hyperallergic, Hooligan Magazine, the Northwestern Art Review, The Stake, and Title Magazine. She also runs her own art blog, I On the Arts, and curates her life in pictures @Debonthearts on Twitter and Instagram.

“We’re Not So Different”: Tradition, Culture, and Falling in Love in ‘Bride & Prejudice’

Though clearly based on the novel, ‘Bride & Prejudice’ is a successful piece of transnational cinema, which uses the interracial relationship between the Bakshi’s second eldest daughter Lalita and white American Mark Darcy to discuss differences in race, tradition, and cultural imperialism.

This guest post by Becky Kukla appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

The late 90s, early 2000s saw a boom of Jane Austen inspired adaptations hitting our screens. Clueless, Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the later 2005 Pride & Prejudice are just some of the well loved movies which are pretty much straight translations from the book itself. This phenomenon is still going on (audiences just love Jane Austen) with the recent release of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is another, rather different take on the classic novel. There’s one Austen inspired film, though, which stands out above all the others: Bride & Prejudice (Gurinder Chadha, 2004). Instead of keeping it traditional with the era, nationality of the characters or even the country in which the original novel is based — Bride & Prejudice transports the story to India and introduces us to the Bakshi sisters. Though clearly based on the novel, Bride & Prejudice is a successful piece of transnational cinema, which uses the interracial relationship between the Bakshi’s second eldest daughter Lalita and white American Mark Darcy to discuss differences in race, tradition, and cultural imperialism. Of course it features a lot of singing and dancing, as any film dedicated to exploring social commentary should.

Writer and director Gurinder Chadha is renowned in her filmmaking for focusing on Indian women reconciling their culture and traditions with modern day living, usually prompted by the female protagonist living in the UK. Bride & Prejudice is no exception to this, apart from the location. The film primarily takes place in the Bakshi’s hometown of Amritsar but the family travels to Los Angeles, London, Windsor and Goa throughout the film — making the film a truly eclectic mix of both Bollywood and British Cinema. Chadha builds on the existing identity crisis within the original Pride & Prejudice and adds into the mix the clashing of cultures, expectations and a transatlantic love story. The story closely follows the novel; Elizabeth is replaced with Lalita (Aishwarya Rai), younger sister to Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar) and older sister to Maya and Lakhi. Lalita and Jaya meet Balraj (the Mr Bingley character, played by Naveen Andrews) and Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) at a spectacular wedding. Jaya and Balraj fall for each other in the first instance whereas (true to the novel) Lalita and Will spend the rest of the film misunderstanding each other, fighting and eventually declaring their love for one another.

Whilst we already know from their first meeting that Lalita and Will are going to end up together, a fascinating dynamic between them speaks volumes about the imperialist relationship between India and Europe/USA. It is through their relationship as people from two wholly different cultures that the film is able to explore just how perversely the West treats Indians and Indian culture. Whilst Jaya and Lalita are accompanying Balraj and Will on a trip to Goa, Will tells Lalita that his family plans on building a hotel in the area. He expects her to be pleased, assuming that she will be happy that his business will bring jobs to the area. Lalita, instead, is furious and talks at length about how the tourism industry is destroying the more rural parts of India. Lalita explains to Will that she can only see how the big hotel companies are draining the culture out of India, and that they want the experience of India without the Indian people. “Five star comfort with a bit of culture thrown in? Well, I don’t want you to turn India into a theme park.” We trust Lalita as our protagonist and we understand her views — the comparison between her home town of Amritsar and the beautiful tourist resort of Goa is proof enough that what she is saying is true. There is a clear divide in opinion about what Will Darcy believes is good for India, and what Lalita (the person who actually lives there) believes. It’s by no accident that Will Darcy is a white man trying to tell Lalita that he actually knows better than she does. Lalita herself mentions the history of British Imperialism within India, and accuses Will of doing the same with his family’s hotel business. Bride & Prejudice, although predominantly a feel-good film, doesn’t hold back with it’s thoughts on how Europe and America have systematically exploited the Indian people and land, and indeed continue to do so.

Throughout the film, the Bakshi parents’ main motivation is to marry off each of their daughters to a suitable husband. As Bride & Prejudice is an amalgamation of both British and Bollywood cinema, Will can almost be seen as a surrogate for Western audiences watching the film. Specifically, his view on arranged marriages. The arranged marriage is a slightly foreign concept for many viewers in Europe/USA in comparison to those watching the film in India, who would (generally) be more knowledgeable and understanding of the situation. Will speaks out about the concept, in a similar vein to how most Americans would feel — remarking how the idea of an arranged marriage is ‘backwards.’ The irony here of course is that in the original novel, the marriages are pretty much arranged for both Elizabeth and Jane. At least, their mother (in both Bride and Pride) is set on finding suitors for both girls, and each girl would only be allowed to get married with the permission of their father. The irony runs even deeper, when Lalita discovers that Will’s own mother is arranging him a marriage back in Los Angeles. Whilst Lalita accepts the differences and similarities within the two cultures, Will is unable to see past his ignorance and superiority to understand that the two of them are not so different or that the idea of an arranged marriage is not ‘backwards.’

Bride & Prejudice uses stylistic elements from both traditional Bollywood cinema with English dialogue and Western references as a metaphor for the interracial relationship between the two main characters. The visuals marry both types of cinema: we are treated to large scale dance numbers that are performed in English, or accompanied by a gospel choir on a beach in LA. If the technical elements of the individual national cinemas can come together, then so can Lalita and Will. The discourse within the film is almost postcolonial via the character of Lalita herself — she encompasses the traditional nationalism by performing traditional Bollywood choreographed sequences with her sisters and undergoing the conventional ‘love story’ narrative. Yet her views and opinions about the world she lives in are incredibly modern (particularly the song ‘No Life Without Wife’) which puts her at a unique crossroad.

Of course, these themes are surrounded by extravagant dance numbers, catchy songs and comedic dialogue. Despite its family-friendly, light-hearted approach, Chadha doesn’t hide the ideas about cultural imperialism. Bride & Prejudice proves that a film can be playful and funny but also make serious comments on race, tradition and culture. Its message is slightly diminished by the reconciliation of Lalita and Will at the end of the film — mostly because it takes very little time for Lalita to suddenly decide that Will is actually a nice guy. Most of Will’s niceness stems from the fact that the character of Johnny Wickham is worse than Will, putting him into a much better light in the Bakshi’s eyes. He does redeem himself and one of Bride & Prejudice’s accomplishments is that Lalita does not have to compromise her views and meet him halfway, like so many other flawed couples have to do. It is Will who changes his opinions completely and refuses to allow his family to build a hotel, much to Lalita’s happiness. It is coy, and the film ends with the double wedding of the two eldest sisters (as in the novel) but coyness doesn’t mean that it doesn’t speak volumes about the cross-cultural barrier that Lalita and (mostly) Will had to navigate around.

Recommended Reading:

Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice: A Transnational Journey through Space & Time by Elena Oliete Aldea

Becky Kukla lives in London, works in film production, likes G&T’s, and watching every Netflix original series ever. She blogs about on-screen representation at her blog Femphile and writes for Film Inquiry.

Negotiating Race as the Female Indian Love Interest in ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’

Both ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ examine Indian women and their romances with white men. Within the interracial relationships explored in these respective films, both Jess and Rita… are burdened with navigating deeply impressed racial boundaries as they move through a modern society.

This guest post by Allie Gemmill appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

Through Western lenses, Indian women are often framed as an exotic and forbidden ideal. Depicted as embodying a degree of Eastern mysticism, rooted in a culture of patriarchal duty, the Indian woman as love interest or girlfriend is often paired with a white man who views her with a sense of “otherness.” It then falls to the Indian woman to negotiate a specific kind of Eastern-Western iconoclasm — a clash steeped in racial and cultural sentiments — in order to let her romance with a white man flourish. The white male-Indian female dynamic is also often portrayed as a threat to traditional Indian expectations of a woman marrying within her racial group and the emphasized gender roles she has been raised to conform to are challenged.

Both Bend It Like Beckham and The Darjeeling Limited examine Indian women and their romances with white men. Within the interracial relationships explored in these respective films, both Jess (Parminder Nagra) and Rita (Amara Karan) serve as love interests but not long-term romantic partners for their white male counterparts. They are burdened with navigating deeply impressed racial boundaries as they move through a modern society. Meanwhile, their white male love interests are allowed to indulge their romantic curiosities with relative ease. This is crucial to note because these white men are rarely challenged to share the burden of interracial courtship, free from the onus of cultural or racial expectations. For Indian women, as experienced here, it is difficult to separate race from amorous pursuit; race serves as a definitive and non-negotiable aspect of the relationships between the Indian women and white men.

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM

In Bend It Like Beckham, protagonist Jess is torn between honoring her Punjabi Sikh Indian roots (as embodied in her strict parents and sister, who is marrying according to racial and cultural codes) and the English culture which she has embraced and surrounds herself with (as embodied in her love of soccer and her budding romance with her white coach, Joe). Although she bears the burden of fetishization from her English peers in conjunction with her pursuit of a soccer career and gendered/racial expectations from her family, Jess for the most part negotiates a coalition between the two insofar as she is able to pursue her personal ambitions. Jess is forced to reckon with a strict code of honor and respect for her family throughout the film, as outlined by her Indian culture, which the film positions as a threat to not only Jess’s happiness in soccer but also in her budding romance with Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers).

Gender is constantly conflated with racially-based codes of conduct: Jess is repeatedly questioned by her mother and sister about why she would not eagerly desire to marry young and marry an Indian man. Her mother is quick to bawl her out for participating in soccer, here read as masculine and therefore thoroughly out of line with how Indian women should act in public. Jess is considered a reflection of her family’s morals at all times when she is in public and any time she acts according to her own desires, she risks shaming her family and threatening her sister’s impending nuptials. In this world, Jess bears the brunt of delicately mollifying her family while speaking for her “white/masculine” athletic ambitions.

Add to this a budding romance with Joe, a white Irishman, and Jess’s own racial and gender predicaments double. Through Joe’s eyes, Jess is positioned as an exotic “other,” a young Indian girl seemingly sheltered from the pleasures of contemporary British culture. During Jess’s “transformation” moment — when her friends lender her more revealing and sexy garb to wear out to a club in Berlin — the camera lingers on her body before cutting to Joe’s furtively intrigued looks. Despite there being other women of color in her soccer team, Jess is the only one treated as different from the rest, with other scenes depicting the bemusement her teammates have over her Indian culture. This moment seals the forbidden love that Jess and Joe will cultivate for the latter half of the film. As they find themselves drawn to each other, Joe is narratively allowed the ease to step in when necessary to speak on behalf Jess. Twice he makes speeches to her father about how deeply he cares for her and believes in her abilities as a soccer player. Both times Jess does not get the chance to contribute to the conversation between the men although her agreement is implied. Joe risks little in taking a romantic shine to Jess whereas Jess appears to risk everything. Furthermore, he is allowed to pursue her, however discreetly, without threat of losing his job or credibility.

As gender and race are tightly bound up together in Bend It Like Beckham, director Gurinder Chadha makes it clear that an interracial relationship of this specific dynamic (white man-Indian woman) is a sincere threat to a young Indian woman. Even when transplanted to the London suburbs, Jess and her family seem to live in a tight-knit Indian community seemingly bent on being hermetically sealed from white English life. This clash of racial and social ideologies make for the biggest villains to Jess’s own chance at happiness.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED

In The Darjeeling Limited, Rita is reduced to an object that Jack (Jason Schwartzman) is infatuated with while on vacation with his older brothers. Jack’s storyline is centered around a recent and gruesome breakup, leaving him vulnerable. Upon seeing Rita for the first time, while she makes the brothers comfortable, Jack firmly sets his sights on her. While Rita is a minor character in the adventures of the Whitman brothers, she can be read as a boldly fetishized representation of Indian women. In doing this, we place further burden on how Indian women are characterized onscreen.

Rita is presented as a modern and beautiful woman, but ultimately repressed, ostensibly by the Indian culture in which she was raised. She is seemingly trapped aboard the train, The Darjeeling Limited, with her boyfriend, an intense young Sikh man who runs the train with an iron fist. She is willing to bend the moral code by sneaking away with Jack to have sex (which she enjoys in the moment) but rebuffs him when he continues to make advances. She sneaks cigarettes in between service snacks and pouring tea. Albeit committed to her duties, she does them as if half-zombified, stating at one point that she has “got to get off this train.” She is deadened in a stylish way as only Wes Anderson creates his characters. In all of these little actions, Rita becomes Jack’s forbidden interracial-love-interest-cum-souvenir.

In addition to having little screen time, the script seems further set on reducing Rita to being a faceless trope when Jack returns to the trio’s train carriage, attempting to appear nonchalant after having sex with Rita mere moments after meeting her. Jack’s brother Francis (Owen Wilson) incredulously asks, “Did you just fuck that Indian girl?” It’s a small moment but effective in immediately redacting any shred of agency Rita may own. A white man simply lumping Rita into the throngs of Indian women that surround him betrays an intact colonial hierarchy as modern microagression. Jack does nothing to protest this categorization of his potential love interest and instead continues to pursue her, believing she may somehow heal him or make him feel better about himself for a time. Rita’s treatment as a cure-all to white male pain feels oddly preposterous, especially considering the film is set in a modern era. What right does Jack have to take so quickly to Rita in both a romantic or needy aspect? What entitles him? While Rita gives Jack a reason to believe there may be the stirrings of a romance, their love seems doomed not only because of his neediness and apathy to fully commit, but also because she seems wholly restricted by her relationship to a traditionally Indian man as well as her innate sense of duty to her work.

Amidst the flurry of lust flung upon her by Jack, Rita appears to be inured to this kind of attention. While she navigates her life in a position of literal service and subservience to the passengers of the train, she holds that place metaphorically as an Indian woman. In vocalizing her desire to escape the confines of the train, she negates a racially-inbred sense of second-class status as an Indian woman. While she is wholly defined by her race and gender in Darjeeling, she is imbued with a defiance as only modern women seem to possess. Jack is allowed to ply her with sex and cigarettes because he can temporarily indulge in the local fare; Rita, however, is living in a very real and very traditional Indian society, unable to escape or completely negotiate her duty with her desire.

It is perplexing to see that both films seem set on giving the impression that Indian society is ultimately restrictive and patriarchal to women. In reading these films (one made by an Indian woman born in Nairobi and raised in England, the other made by a white man from Texas), both exude the confinement of Indian women and their struggle to navigate a modern (read: white, Eurocentric) world amidst such strong ties to their racial background. It would be the hope that when Chadha placed Jess in the white world of suburban London and Anderson wrote Rita into her native India, we would see some characters reflective of these different but ultimately Western perspectives. Instead, both directors have unwittingly constructed their Indian women to abide by an implied universal gendered and racial code. As such, these cinematic Indian women are painted into a corner in juggling their race with their ambition and most importantly, their romantic desires.

Allie Gemmill is a film journalist based in Tampa, FL. She is the founder and creative director of The Filmme Guild, a feminist film salon dedicated to examining the intersections of women and film. Follow her on Twitter and Medium.

‘English-Vinglish’: Straddling Patriarchal and Linguistic Hegemony

Moving away from the Bollywood style masala and dancing-around-the-trees numbers, this film focuses on the real-life issue of the position of women in the domestic and social spheres in India.

This guest post by Asma Sayed previously appeared at AwaaZ Magazine and appears here as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture. Cross-posted with permission.

English-Vinglish is a new addition to the increasing number of Indian crossover films—socially progressive films that can still be commercially successful on a global scale. Moving away from the Bollywood style masala and dancing-around-the-trees numbers, this film focuses on the real-life issue of the position of women in the domestic and social spheres in India. Traditionally, many Indian feminist filmmakers such as Deepa Mehta, Meera Nair, Gurinder Chadha and Aparna Sen have made films about subject matter generally not discussed in the mainstream cinema: domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking, sexuality, and women’s rights in general. While these filmmakers continue to direct films with new and varied focuses, it is also exciting to witness the new generation of female directors in India that includes Anusha Rizvi (Peepli Live), Kiran Rao (Dhobi Ghat) and now, Gauri Shinde (English-Vinglish), who are doing excellent work and bringing unconventional cinema and subject matter to audiences. In a country where women’s role in society is very complex—on one hand, there have been female presidents and prime ministers, and on the other, the society remains highly patriarchal and there are the growing concernsrelated to the imbalance in birth sex ratiosresulting from female foeticide—presenting women’s life experiences can be a daunting task.

In her debut film English-Vinglish, Gauri Shinde, the writer and director, takes charge of the issue of women’s role in a society still suffering from the colonial mindset where people’s worth is judged on the base of their proficiency in English. Shashi (Sridevi), the protagonist of the film, is a wife and a mother, and also a good cook. She puts her culinary skills to work by starting a small home-based business selling “laddoos,” an Indian sweet. But Shashi’s knowledge of English is limited, and her tween daughter, the older of the two children in the family, and her husband Satish (Adil Hussain) continuously make fun of her linguistic incompetency. The daughter is embarrassed about her mother’s minimal knowledge of English and does not want Shashi to go to school with her as Shashi will not able to converse in English with other mothers or with the principal of the convent school. Satish is complicit in deriding Shashi’s weaknesses. Shashi feels justifiably belittled and insecure. Nonetheless, despite the lack of appreciation that her family shows toward her, Shashi never sways in performing her motherly and wifely duties. As part of a patriarchal system that she doesn’t explicitly question, she accepts that Satish expects her to have his breakfast ready in the morning, and that shebe ready to warm his bed by night. As such, Shashi spends her time doing all the household chores and running her small business, and never finds a moment for herself.

Incidentally, performing another of her traditional roles, Shashi has to travel to America alone to help her sister plan her daughter’s wedding. Once in America, she reads a billboard advertising English classes that promise fluency in four weeks. Shashi starts attending classes. What follows is reminiscent of the 1970s BBC sitcom Mind Your Language and the follow-up Indian Hindi sitcom titled Zabaan Sambhalke. Shashi’s classmates are from various ethnicities and nationalities; all of them are struggling with their language skills and ultimately become good friends as they learn English. One of her classmates, a Frenchman, Laurent (Mehdi Nebbou), falls in love with Shashi. As the film progresses, Shashi’s husband and children come to Manhattan to attend the wedding. Shashi, who has been making all the arrangements for the wedding, makes laddoos for the party. When Satish makes the statement that —“My wife was born to make laddoos”—Shashi is supported by her niece who reminds Shashi that she is capable of much more than laddoo-making and is far more competent than her husband perceives her to be. At the wedding party, Shashi gives a speech—yes, in English. She reminds the couple getting married, as well as her husband and daughter, of the value of family and the need to support one another without being “judgmental” – a word Shashi has picked up from one of the many English films she has watched to learn the language. After her speech, both Satish and their daughter apologize to Shashi for their ill-manners. However, this repentanceemanates only after Shashi has learned English and in so doing learned her own self-worth. Shashi comes to appreciate herself, her work and her identity, and becomes a more confident woman.

The film is certainly entertaining and well-made. The plot is tight-knit and gripping. The film attempts to showcase the everyday reality of women’s position in male-controlled Indian society. But, ultimately, the message that Shashi imparts in her speech is very conventional.When I watched the movie the first time, I was reminded of an advertisement that I saw in Gujarati newspapers when I was growing up in India. The bold writing at the top of the advert read “modern but good mother.” The advert insisted that a mother who is modern enough to know the world around her would ensure that she used the product it advertised. I never got over the conjunction “but” in that caption. The word posed modernity and motherhood as antithetical – any modern woman had to make a special attempt to simultaneously be a “good” mother. The institution of motherhood is much glamorized in contemporary societies in that a woman is deemed incomplete if she is unwilling or unable to conceive. Motherhood is still considered a central tenet of female identity. And yet, in a changing neoliberal and patriarchal society people fail to see the value of women’s domestic chores including those related to motherhood, and as such mother-work is neither socially respected nor valued economically. This reality is reinforced at the end of the film for Shashi’s role does not change – she is still the same housewife and a doting mother – although one who can now speak English. Shashi’s speech about family values brings her right back to square one; thus, Shashi’s role is static. Therefore, the film does not suggest any radical transformation of women’s social roles. It merely demands from them a higher level of education that, while potentially personally fulfilling, is not intended to challenge their traditional roles and could be argued to be simply placing more pressure on women. Moreover, the audience does not get a glimpse into Shashi’s feelings for Laurent; when her niece questions her about Laurent, all that Shashi says is that she does not need love, but respect. Shashi thanks Laurent for making her feel special, but as a dedicated Indian wife, she is not allowed to have any feelings of her own, and she goes right back to the husband who didn’t appreciate her much – one is to be hopeful that he will be a changed person when they land in India off the airplane from America, but then, can the patriarchal ideologies that have been internalized over the years be forgotten that quickly? After all, following more than six decades of decolonization, India has not unlearned the hegemony of English.

The role of language has been debated continuously in the post-colonial world. While English came to countries such as India and Africa as a result of colonization, it has endured and, in India, now has a much stronger hold than during the colonial period. English has become a tool of what R. Radhakrishnan has called “cultural modernization.” However, English has been a contested language in post-colonial world at large. For instance, while Ngugi Wa Thing’o wrote that “language is a collective memory bank of people’s experience in history” and refused to write in English, Chinua Achebe declared that the language that the colonizers left behind belonged to him. While he decided to use it, he saw it as remade via appropriation: for the English he used had “to be new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.” Whether it is Standard English, or appropriated, favoring the language at the cost of indigenous languages is a political move and a culture-altering exercise.

One cannot deny that English has become a lingua franca in India, and that sadly, there is linguistic hierarchy in the nation with English as the ticket to upward mobility. Thus, the fact that in the film, Shashi proves her worth by learning English showcases India’s highly colonialist linguistic history. However, India’s women’s liberation movement can certainly do without adhering to such hegemonic ideologies. At one point in the film Shashi is ecstatic when she learns the word “entrepreneur” – she is told that she was an entrepreneur as she sold sweets. Suddenly, this English word gives new elevated meaning and value to her work, making her feel important and confident. She walks the streets of New York saying the word repeatedly. In showing Shashi’s success through her acquisition of English, Shinde fails to address other issues of a post-colonial nation. Many advertisements and mainstream films in India play on the insecurities of women; for instance, the fairness creams are a huge market in this country where women are always reminded by society and through these ads that dark-skinned women are somehow inferior. Similarly, in this case, those who lack the knowledge of English have to prove their worth by learning the language of the colonizers. In not moving away from a colonialist mind frame, Indians are fulfilling Lord Macaulay’s desire, expressed in his 1835 “Minute on Education,” “to form a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions . . . .” It is an irony that in a country which has its own richness of multiple languages, the hegemony of English has outlasted British colonial times.

Ultimately the film is about an Indian woman’s moral and family values – Shashi shows no interest in Laurent, the Frenchman who loves her, nor does she even once abandon her saree and mangal sutra –signifiers of a married Hindu woman – when in America. At the end, Shashi is just an English-speaking, sacrificial Indian woman – not a woman who has awakened to her rights or to her own needs. Shashi’s confidence returns after she found acceptance by a Frenchman, and after her husband and daughter have found her worth enhanced due to her English speaking skills. This is a classic example of patriarchal and linguistic supremacy. Shashi depends on the approval of men to feel good about herself. She also proves her worth by learning English. One does wonder if a single woman speaking Marathi or Gujarati or Tamil or Telugu has anything to feel good about.

An entertaining crossover film, English-Vinglish fails to deliver the feminist message that it may have intended to bring forth. While in various interviews the director has demonstrated her awareness of British colonization and Indian people’s misplaced awe of white people, it is a shame that rather than showcasing the ridiculousness of racialized and colonial insecurities, the film ultimately fails to transmit a message of awareness. Instead this work falls prey to the same stereotypes the director appears to critique.

Dr. Asma Sayed teaches English, Communication Studies, and Women’s Studies in Canadian universities. She has published three books as well as several refereed articles and book chapters, on such topics as diaspora literature, Canadian comparative literature, Indian cinema, and women’s representation in cinema. She writes a film column for AwaaZ: Voices, a periodical in Kenya.

‘Bend It Like Beckham’ And The Lesbian Hate Debate

Bend it like Beckham film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

“You bitch!”

This thunderous exclamation seems to occur every five minutes. If a girl is way prettier, she’s a bitch. If a girl “steals” a man of a girl who isn’t even dating that said man, she’s a bitch. If a girl is thought to be a lesbian, she’s a bitch. Twice Jesminder “Jesse” Bharma, Bend it Like Beckham’s football loving protagonist, has been on the receiving end of the blow, but I started to lose sight of this supposedly empowering feminist sports movie due to the infinitely alarming amount of lesbian hatred disguised as harmless humor. To be a lesbian is a bitch? Really? Why?

Joe the coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) makes damn sure that Jesse (Parminder Nadra) is no lady lover.

Lesbianism appeared to be an invisible villain to both Jesse and her equally talented teammate, Juliet “Jules” Paxton—a horrendous nasty vile “disease” that could only arise from women who enjoy contact sports.

In Gurinder Chadha’s debut feature film, Jesse is inspired by David Beckham and has his posters and jersey decorating bedroom walls. She wants to emulate his prowess and expertise on the football field and certain people think that it’s not only his athleticism that propels her. She might just like women too. Jesse’s mother hates that she doesn’t want to be called “Jesminder” or act more feminine and domesticated.

“We aren’t lesbians! We both love Joe!” Jesse (Parminder Nagra) and Jules (Keira Knightly) should have chanted.

Jules notices Jesse’s skills against the boys and asks her to join a local team. Jesse eagerly agrees and plays in secret, knowing that her parents would greatly disapprove. Jesse and Jules start to build a positive relationship with Jules schooling Jesse on the amazing Mia Hamm, one of many American women football players in action. The close twosome begin sharing dreams of becoming an active member of the overseas sports team.

Jesse’s parents and Jules’ mother Paula are horrendously incomprehensible characters for sexist views about women’s lock length.

“They wear their hair so short these days, you can never tell,” says Jesse’s mother, twice.

This supposed to be a joke, but why?

Hair length is such a sensitive topic to women, especially when length is close cropped and called “boyish.” No one ever seems to really comprehend the meanings behind hair and what it truly says about someone. Whether a woman likes it away from their face, hate strands touching their butts, donates tresses to worthy causes, wears a protective scarf, or battles cancer or other form of loss, hair is worn differently by all women of all cultures and creeds and shouldn’t be a mark set against them if it’s above shoulders or just plain bald. Feminism should not be marketed towards hair, but unfortunately it always has and will be. Lesbians also wear their hair in various styles and the short hair cut is so beyond stereotypical. It isn’t that powerful to make fun of a group of women or use them as a catalyst to drive laughter. Lesbians also are people too– not a dirty circumstance.

When Pinky’s wedding is called off due to her fiance’s parents seeing Jesse and Jules “kissing,” Pinky is enraged and calls Jesse a bitch for ruining her life. So yes, lesbianism is so treacherous, it gets in the way of events like holy matrimony. Chadra’s co-written screenplay entails all the wrongs of same sex pairings, using misunderstandings as trivial humor– seen by both Jesse and Jules’ reactions to hearing that their families believe them to be drawn together and not to boys. It fails miserably at being sentimental to lesbians as a whole.

Jesse (Parminder Nagra) and her sister Pinky (the awesome Archie Panjabi) both look surprised by Paula (offscreen Juliet Stevenson) announcing that Jesse is part of a lesbian couple with Jules.

“Mother, just because I wear trakkies and play sport does not make me a lesbian!” Jules tells Paula, as if lesbianism the most foul label ever.

Bitch is fine. But lesbian is a slap to the cheek.

Paula was the absolute worst.

Now what if Jules really were a lesbian? If I were in Jules’ shoes (or cleats), I wouldn’t explain a damn thing to rude, insensitive Paula. For Paula to coldly burst into Pinky’s wedding and “call out” Jesse wasn’t exactly classy even if she tells Jules that she wouldn’t have minded Jesse and Jules being a couple. However, didn’t she not just yell for Jesse to get her “lesbian feet” out of her shoes? That doesn’t sound like someone who would’ve been supportive. Perhaps this is to be a humorous notion (still finding it hard to laugh), but politics on a woman’s style of hair and dress to be considered masculine instead of powerful and sophisticated is outrageous! Not only can’t women have short hair without being labeled manly, we cannot wear pants everyday because that’s an acute sign of lesbianism! Oh and if we play sports especially football, we might not like boys…..

It’s a shame that Jesse and Jules’ fallout had to be over a man– Joe, the coach.

Joe is going to see Jesse (Parminder Nagra) in a new light thanks to “The Makeover” by Jules (Keira Knightly) and Mel (Shaznay Lewis).

Joe trained Jesse hard on the playing field and shared a couple of his old football glory days prior to injury, but the moment Jesse wore makeup, a form fitting nearly backless number, and long wavy hair cascading about shoulders, he gazed in that beseeching manner that is supposed to be considered romantic. Awww. He really likes her outside of uniform and ponytails.

Pish posh!

This just truly means that her fuckability status moved up and sports took an immediate backburner! All of a sudden Jesse is hot stuff and Joe wants to have his sample, asking her to dance and almost taking advantage of her drunken state at the club celebration. Now the film has switched over from thrilling lady sports to a man getting his power on– thankfully for a few minutes at a time. A friendship gets spat on over a man. It becomes war between Jesse and Jules and that “you bitch!” comes bursting out like a launching torpedo—expected but crappy nonetheless. Jesse and Jules make it abundantly clear that they don’t want each other, but they sure do want that Joe.

However, pissed over the typical women falling for the same man BS, I respect that they don’t battle over the spot for the American team. Irate Jules took the time to seek out Jesse because she knew that Jesse was needed. When they played football, they were in it together, functioning, reacting, and showcasing talents together, victorious champions on the field, telling the world that women can kick around a soccer ball, that their dainty feet can work just as craftily and aggressively as a man. They put differences aside with cleats, game faces, and their other female counterparts to take on one hell of a win! Jesse and Jules prove that just because playing sports is considered a masculine way of showcasing aggression, women too can be rough, wield scars, and sweatiness.

Those kisses? Those hugs? That’s a female’s version of the butt taps that male athletes do. Why factor more into that?

The girls win big!

After all, the moral of the story is that girls can play sports and like boys– not be one of those scary lesbians!

I applaud Chadha’s direction, but let’s lay off the meanness next time.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Thoughts on ‘The Mindy Project’ and Other Screen Depictions of Indian Women

The Mindy Project

Guest post written by Martyna Przybysz.

I was born and bred in Poland, a country that has for years struggled to embrace foreign cultures, and despite its growing tolerance and diversity across all aspects of society, including mainstream media, you wouldn’t quite describe it as multicultural. Having gotten the film bug at a young age, and having a film buff for a father, I have been exposed to the World and European cinemas early. Yet the topic of cultural diversity never as much as brushed upon the surface of mine and my peers’ discussions on film. Yes, there was Almodovar, and… there was Almodovar. It wasn’t until I have moved to the UK, back in 2005 that the term “ethnic minority” was first made known to me. Few years on, and I started flirting with the idea of joining the media industry. And this is when I realised that – despite an ever-present and rather obvious diversity of women in the world as such, as well as the labor market – the lack of women of varied ethnic backgrounds in the media, be it on screen or behind it, was striking. The Asian women being one of the under-represented groups.

Gurinder Chadha’s It’s a Wonderful Afterlife

The first year of my film studies was also the time of assimilation into a multiracial society, and the time when I was introduced to the insightful work of Gurinder Chadha, a British director of Indian-Kenyan origin. Chadha is known for her work depicting the lives of Indians, and more specifically, Indian women residing in the UK. Her films – such as my absolute favourite Bhaji on the Beach, and widely recognized Bend it Like Beckham – have not only focused on young South Asian women and the dilemmas they faced, confronted with what is expected of them by their community, but most importantly, they explored the topic of female bonding and intergenerational ties.

The women of Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair

The above topics were also being discussed in parallel by Indian director Mira Nair. There was the exploration of the implications that being in an interracial relationship in the ’90s America comes with, in Mississippi Masala, as well as that of secrets and conflict in a multigenerational Indian family in Monsoon Wedding. Nair and Chadha offered me a unique opportunity to explore their amazing and colorful culture, that I have otherwise wouldn’t be able to get to know so closely. But what I most liked about the work of these two women of South Asian origin, was the very first thing I appreciate in female-directed films in general: the fact that they focus on female characters and do not shy away from exposing and exploring their flaws.

Fast forward to 2012 and along came Mindy Lahiri. Or rather Vera Chokalingam, known to all by her stage name, Mindy Kaling. I know that Mindy was widely recognized way before The Mindy Project from The Office and I know that its devotees will want to assail me for this, but… I haven’t seen a single episode! But judging by her excellent writing and acting in her auteur project – I am sure that she was flawless.

Truth be told, I only discovered Kaling last year, upon my first trip to the U.S. in Autumn 2012. Hoping for an easy plane read, I bought her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns) and I was not disappointed. Mindy’s writing is light, funny, and with just the right amount of self-deprecation. And so is her show.

#themindyproject

Having gotten to know Mindy ‘the creator’, Mindy ‘the product of thus creation’ didn’t come as a surprise to me. She’s quirky, a bit ditzy, could easily pass as innocent, and definitely as naïve, and she is not particularly self-critical (take the latest episode’s taxi cab commercial featuring Dr Lahiri dressed in a dog’s costume and conversing with a puppet named Erica, the same commercial that gets her the highest ‘P’ rating, meaning ‘pity rating’).

“I just need to ride out this minor humiliation until I find my Kanye.”

Most of all of – Mindy is an extremely likable character. Despite her naivety, she is a smart and ambitious woman, finding fulfillment in her career, and yes, despite occasional bumps here and there in relation to men, she does value herself, which is a very powerful message on its own.

“It’s so weird being my own role model.”

Mindy’s career is not a topic yet discussed in depth – much of the in-work plot evolves around her competing with the two male doctors at her practice, or more recently, two male midwives from a rival practice – but her love life can be summarised in one phrase, that goes something like “the endless pursuit of romance.” As the show progresses, we discover that this is not all that Mindy is about. She values friendships, and yes, to our awe, she does value her patients in a completely selfless way (take episode 15 “Mindy’s Minute” as an example of her good-doctor attitude).

A majority of feminist statements made in the show have nothing to do with race. Similarly to Hannah from Girls, she is a full-figured lady, unobnoxiously proud of it (she wears dresses that accentuate her figure but rarely reveals her cleavage), and very much aware of it. She refers to herself in a belittling manner on a number of occasions, such as in episode one when she answers her phone on a date saying, “Do you know how difficult it is for a chubby 31-year-old woman to go on a legit date with a guy who majored in economics at Duke?.” So, there is a healthy dose of self-awareness. Or is there? I forever struggle with the concept of weight and bodily image of women on screen – the general consensus, according to the media, is that thin equals beautiful. Therefore it is always so ‘refreshing’ and ‘bold’ to see a ‘bigger’ female character on screen. I simply find those statements annoying. I dream of a day when any woman on screen will be considered beautiful for her individual qualities and features, rather than being seen and described as ‘something’ in comparison to ‘something else’.

Going back to the Indian culture – as already established, Mindy approaches everything with self-deprecating humour, like in the latest episode, when offered an opportunity to present medical news in her new pitiful persona (see: paragraph six), she fatastises of this being the beginning of her celebrity doctor dream coming true, and says to her co-workers “can you guys believe it… me, the child of immigrants…”. I mean, you gotta laugh. There is, however, a thin line between mocking one’s own culture and playing on the well-known stereotypes like Kaling, and overdoing it, like in New Girl, where Schmidt’s obsession for Cece’s ethnicity goes beyond tasteful at times. Mindy’s ethnicity does not really matter to her or the viewer, unless it is convenient for her to play with it in a stereotypical way (like when she makes authoritative statements about how Black guys love Indian women), which in my opinion, she does with a comedic grace.

Nonetheless, the former show touches upon such issues as arranged marriage and the compromises that Asian women must make in order to remain in good graces of their family. With Mindy, on the other hand, we never really learn much about her family, or what was expected of her, but the sole fact that she is a doctor, and expects her brother to become an educated professional himself, brings us back to the “child of immigrants” syndrome. Maybe because she is already so Westernised there is nothing to really rebel against, and the cultural aspect falls to the background. Nothing that Mindy does bends the rules quite as much as what Jesminder did in Bend it Like Beckham, but then, the times have changed.

Mindy Kaling as Mindy Lahiri

Mindy Kaling is the creator of The Mindy Project, as well as the main writer on the show. There is no question that she’s witty, talented, utterly adorable, and challenges, however subtly, some most common cultural stereotypes ingrained in the audiences’ minds by the media. It is not a show for everyone, for sure. But it is an entertaining show, that can find its audience amongst both, men and women.

Let’s face it, we love quirky and goofy characters. Deep down we all hope we are more adorable than pitiful when we find ourselves in embarrassing situations. Does it matter then what colour/ethinicty/gender the characters are? And if we say that it doesn’t, why aren’t there more female Indian protagonists like Mindy Lahiri on the big and small screen? And how is this astounding imbalance a reflection of the melting pot that our society is today? That is beyond me. And so the debate continues.

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Martyna is a Pole living in London, UK. She works in media and the arts. A sucker for portrait photography and a salted caramel cheesecake. This is her blog: http://martynaprzybysz.tumblr.com.